Anyone played Divinity: Original Sin?

[Zhukov]

Mechanically adequate and well put together. Complex enough to be interesting, although it's kind of unbalanced and you'll have to handicap yourself to avoid breaking the game.

Writing is bloated, interminable and utterly uninspired. It feels like DnD fanfiction written by an engineer or, more likely, a programmer.

UI was okay, nothing great but neither did it have me swearing at the screen. Only complaint is that there's no shared inventory, which is a miserable pain unless you enjoy old-achool item-shuffling busywork.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

There are some kind of annoyingly esoteric puzzles, that seem to involve convoluted point and click game logic to solve, but there's also usually clever workarounds to a lot of puzzles too, especially using the pyramids to teleport your party across gaps and around areas you can bypass a lot of annoying fights, puzzles and key quests just with those pyramids, a high strength or telekinesis character to throw them, and a good lockpicking skill

yeah definitely would double this, not sure why I didn't mention it earlier....the game is very..."fluid" in the way you can react with the environment or solve puzzles, there are tons of random work arounds or shortcuts that sometimes you can't quite tell if the developer intended for that to be a possibility or just built the system in such a way that critical thinking and some imagination can get you through tough spots.

 

[Jason Rayes]

There are some kind of annoyingly esoteric puzzles, that seem to involve convoluted point and click game logic to solve, but there's also usually clever workarounds to a lot of puzzles too, especially using the pyramids to teleport your party across gaps and around areas you can bypass a lot of annoying fights, puzzles and key quests just with those pyramids, a high strength or telekinesis character to throw them, and a good lockpicking skill

yeah definitely would double this, not sure why I didn't mention it earlier....the game is very..."fluid" in the way you can react with the environment or solve puzzles, there are tons of random work arounds or shortcuts that sometimes you can't quite tell if the developer intended for that to be a possibility or just built the system in such a way that critical thinking and some imagination can get you through tough spots.

The Feather Drop spell is invaluable for these type of situations.

 

[EternallyBored]

There are some kind of annoyingly esoteric puzzles, that seem to involve convoluted point and click game logic to solve, but there's also usually clever workarounds to a lot of puzzles too, especially using the pyramids to teleport your party across gaps and around areas you can bypass a lot of annoying fights, puzzles and key quests just with those pyramids, a high strength or telekinesis character to throw them, and a good lockpicking skill

yeah definitely would double this, not sure why I didn't mention it earlier....the game is very..."fluid" in the way you can react with the environment or solve puzzles, there are tons of random work arounds or shortcuts that sometimes you can't quite tell if the developer intended for that to be a possibility or just built the system in such a way that critical thinking and some imagination can get you through tough spots.

The Feather Drop spell is invaluable for these type of situations.

I usually find throwing one of the pyramids works better in any situation outside of battle, even getting into a battle, using the pyramid as a way to drop both of my melee characters right into the middle of an enemy group is cheaper on the AP than using two featherfall spells. I usually find featherfall works better during battle when you need to hot drop a melee character into a better position, or move a caster out of the way.

 

[Jason Rayes]

I usually find throwing one of the pyramids works better in any situation outside of battle, even getting into a battle, using the pyramid as a way to drop both of my melee characters right into the middle of an enemy group is cheaper on the AP than using two featherfall spells. I usually find featherfall works better during battle when you need to hot drop a melee character into a better position, or move a caster out of the way.

I had no-one with strong telekinesis in my party but my caster had big range for feather drop. So I would give the pyramid to the person I was sending, put them in hard to reach places (Across gaps/lava) then have them drop the pyramid and port the party across.

Edit: I did use it in battle too, for exactly the same purpose as you. Put Madora right on a big group then whirlwind. Or drop to an annoying foe and flurry them to bloody pieces.

 

[Compatriot Block]

Playing through the campaign with my brother. Love it, fantastic RPG, co-op combat is a blast. Co-op dialogue is interesting at the least.

Only complaint is the market dialogue.

HALIBUH. SHEEP'S CHEESE. TOMAH-OES.

 

[Jason Rayes]

Playing through the campaign with my brother. Love it, fantastic RPG, co-op combat is a blast. Co-op dialogue is interesting at the least.

Only complaint is the market dialogue.

HALIBUH. SHEEP'S CHEESE. TOMAH-OES.

For some reason one of the people in the market there reminds me of Sam from Lord of the Rings when he is describing the uses for potatoes....

 

[Jason Rayes]

I... did not know ANY of that. Wow. Thanks. While I don't have problems in my progress (I realised pretty quick that one level difference is a lot in this game) this will help me quite a bit.

I didn't discover it 'til I was about level 8. Haha, it would have been SO useful early in the game where any little edge helps. But even right until the end of the game I made sure to upgrade my weapons and armour (You'll unlock other places to do so as the game goes on)

 

[Jason Rayes]

Well, I'm level 12 and in the second hub already so I guess it took me a tad longer to learn that.

Well the game never gives you any helping hands in that regard. I just lucked out when wandering around town and found those things behind the general store. It was just by screwing around that I found out how to improve the weapons and armour. I figure there must be a way to improve blunt weapons, I just never found out how. If you use two bits of sinew on each other you can make a bowstring. Im pretty sure if you use that on a bow you can improve it. I never had any bow users so I never tried that one.

 

[Jandau]

I talked about it in another thread a few days ago.

Basically, it's a good game that I can't bear playing. And I don't know why. I love isometric RPGs (BG2 = best game ever made) and it's not like we're overdosing on them these days. I like all the individual pieces of D:OS - the tactical combat, the robust stats and leveling, the elemental interactions, the visual style, etc. But I can't get further than an hour or two into the game before I completely lose interest and can't be bothered to start it up again.

It's like the game is somehow less than the sum of its parts...

 

[Qitz]

oh I know that, believe me that was the first thing I did after my first battle, I meant along the lines of modern rpg's where out of battle you can either "sleep" or just wait and your health auto-heals for you out of combat/in cities, which is why it is important to have a healer and not just throw mages out like I do in most rpg's I play (I typically don't care for mages, but in this game, rogues are fucking garbage for damage and mages are absolutely amazing with their summons and element spells)

Actually you can sleep to heal. You can't sleep right there, as far as I know, but if you find a bed and right-click on it and your characters will sleep in it and you'll heal each tick. Makes for fast recovery when you jump in-and-out of a combat area.

Also, for people wondering how to learn to craft things, outside of the wiki on it, you can pick up and read various books like Fun with Fluids or Adventurers Field Guide and it will tell you things like how to make Health Potions, how to craft an Arrow or an Axe and even give you Cooking recipes. To find them later you can open your Journal and go to Recipes.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Alright, I bought it after some of the strong recommendations here. Put in...I dunno...10-12 hours so far? Still in the first "area". I quite like the combat...I don't know if I'd say it rubs shoulders with pure tactical games, but it comes close. Temple of Elemental Evil seems like the best comparable, although this game clearly has more scope.

Some questions for people with more experience than me...

1. Is there any way to rig it up so you can buy/sell/repair from a single character instead of constantly needing to shuffle items/gold around? Gets very tiresome.

2. I'll occasionally try to melee characters that appear to be in range, and either I'll swipe the empty air (no miss declaration, just...nothing happens) or the command will refuse to go through. Anyone know what's happening there? Is it a bug, or is there some calculation I'm not taking into effect?

3. Does applying oil to an already burning target do anything?

4. What does the status effect "Chilled" mean? Does it affect combat performance in any meaningful way?

5. If you want to improve action point regeneration and availability, what is the best way to do that without compromising your core stats/skills?

 

[DoPo]

1. Is there any way to rig it up so you can buy/sell/repair from a single character instead of constantly needing to shuffle items/gold around? Gets very tiresome.

Well, give one character Blacksmith and/or Barter (if you think you need it) and all the items. I moved around with one of my characters and picked all items with her, then sold them. My other character did the talking, however and held all the quest items, so basically one was the material guy (or actually girl, in my case) as she dealt with possessions (also noteworthy - all keys), the other character handled quests.

My two companions almost didn't touch any equipment - Jahan had some crafting supplies and was occasionally handed my rogue's dagger for repairs but that's mostly it. Madora only held onto equipment/skillbooks she didn't yet have stats/level for.

So in short, that's what I did.

2. I'll occasionally try to melee characters that appear to be in range, and either I'll swipe the empty air (no miss declaration, just...nothing happens) or the command will refuse to go through. Anyone know what's happening there? Is it a bug, or is there some calculation I'm not taking into effect?

No idea, really.

3. Does applying oil to an already burning target do anything?

Some more burning damage, also they can be slowed (not sure, but seems that it worked sometimes for me. Though sometimes it didn't. It didn't seem to be "failing to apply slow", so I'm not sure why the variable result.)

4. What does the status effect "Chilled" mean? Does it affect combat performance in any meaningful way?

Not much, or sometimes a lot. Chilled, by itself, reduces movement speed a bit (not sure by how much, doesn't seem to be worth it) but also gives the target a penalty to water resistance and bonus to fire resistance. However, if you inflict the Chilled status to a target who is Wet, then the target will become Frozen - they can't act at all but also they get bonus armour. Fire/Warm would remove Chilled/Frozen.

5. If you want to improve action point regeneration and availability, what is the best way to do that without compromising your core stats/skills?

Glass Cannon. It doubles your AP generation. OK, true, it kicks in at the second turn of combat but you turn into a death machine at that point. Halving the max HP is not a huge issue. Heck, when you get GC you would probably need to pump Constitution a bit just so that your AP generation is not capped by it, so you'll have enough HP. Also, melee fighters (Madora) and summons tend to attract AI attention. AI is also quite stupid at moments. Do take Zombie with your melee characters (I had it on Madora and my rogue) and those that are capable of it would keep spewing poison on them thus causing no damage but healing them instead. Other resistances can be boosted to 100% and more with some Crafting and/or equipment - having more than 100% resistance heals you when you take damage.

Note that my experience is for an earlier patch version - I think the resistances may have been "balanced" (not sure to what extent) and some other changes may have been made. I know that Larian (attempted?) to fix Leech which was quite powerful, that's why I didn't suggest it. What it used to do is heal your character any time they were in contact with blood, this meant that most of the physical hits they suffered would also heal them for some amount (though usually less than 100% of the damage taken. Depending on what hit you.) but it really shined with the Bloodletting Witchcraft spell which spills so much blood that if you cast it on a character with Leech they'd be instantly healed to full.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Well, give one character Blacksmith and/or Barter (if you think you need it) and all the items. I moved around with one of my characters and picked all items with her, then sold them. My other character did the talking, however and held all the quest items, so basically one was the material guy (or actually girl, in my case) as she dealt with possessions (also noteworthy - all keys), the other character handled quests.

That's sort of what I'm doing now, minus the Blacksmith. I have my main talky/party leader character just carry EVERYTHING and do ALL the selling, it just gets annoying having to route everything through her. Especially when it comes time to repair gear, as I have to hand out money to everyone like they are little kids on hot dog day.

Some more burning damage, also they can be slowed (not sure, but seems that it worked sometimes for me. Though sometimes it didn't. It didn't seem to be "failing to apply slow", so I'm not sure why the variable result.)

I've tried splashing some oil on already burning peeps a few times and nothing seems to come of it, but I haven't played particularly close attention. My archer goes ahead of my Oiler in terms of initiative, so setting up a pool then lighting it up is a fantasy.

Not much, or sometimes a lot. Chilled, by itself, reduces movement speed a bit (not sure by how much, doesn't seem to be worth it) but also gives the target a penalty to water resistance and bonus to fire resistance. However, if you inflict the Chilled status to a target who is Wet, then the target will become Frozen - they can't act at all but also they get bonus armour. Fire/Warm would remove Chilled/Frozen.

God damn. I never thought about using it in conjunction with wet...I was wondering why I got frozen with it that one time and chilled every time thereafter. That's awesome, thank you.

Glass Cannon. It doubles your AP generation. OK, true, it kicks in at the second turn of combat but you turn into a death machine at that point.

I'd heard Glass Cannon was wildly OP and thus avoided it for exactly that reason. I also didn't roll a pure mage...I went for a "Cleric" type character (heavy armor, shield, self heals) and a "Rogue" type (archer, roguey skills, does all the talking/looting). My Cleric seems to suffer the most from AP issues...she's a bit lumbery with all that armor on.

Do take Zombie with your melee characters (I had it on Madora and my rogue) and those that are capable of it would keep spewing poison on them thus causing no damage but healing them instead.

Is that what Zombie does? Heals you with poison?

Question regarding that...once I shot a zombie with the ricochet ability, and every other target hit was "resisting poison". There is no poison on my bow. Did shooting that first poison zombie poison the arrow that went on to hit the other targets? Usually I'd think there wasn't a chance, but with this game I can't be sure...

 

[4RM3D]

Is it worth a purchase at $39?

The game reminds me of the days of Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment, as in a rich world, no hand-holding, lot of freedom and possibilities.

Anyhow, I just wanted to mention about that $39 price tag... It's $21.45 here [http://www.g2play.net/category/4268/divinity-original-sin-steam-gift/].

 

[subskipper]

Is it worth a purchase at $39?

The game reminds me of the days of Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment, as in a rich world, no hand-holding, lot of freedom and possibilities.

Anyhow, I just wanted to mention about that $39 price tag... It's $21.45 here [http://www.g2play.net/category/4268/divinity-original-sin-steam-gift/].

A good deal. I quite like it and it indeed has a very Baldursy feel to it. It's quite demanding though and I will probably take quite some time to get through it.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Anyhow, I just wanted to mention about that $39 price tag... It's $21.45 here [http://www.g2play.net/category/4268/divinity-original-sin-steam-gift/].

Where were you last week, you monster? I already bought it!

 

[DoPo]

Especially when it comes time to repair gear, as I have to hand out money to everyone like they are little kids on hot dog day.

Wait, equipment gets broken? Might be a new patch thing - the only piece of equipment I ever had to repair (and I had to repair it quite a bit) was my rogue's dagger. Everything else lost, like, 2-3 durability (if any at all) by the time I upgraded it.

You could just give stuff to Jahan (if you have him - another companion or a character with Blacksmith) to repair. Jahan is quite good since he starts with Scientist, which gives him +1 to Blackmith, with two pieces of equipment (belt and bracers - at least these were the only ones I saw that gave bonus to the skill) you can get to +3 Blacksmith, so you'll just need to get to level 2 of the skill to max it out.

I've tried splashing some oil on already burning peeps a few times and nothing seems to come of it, but I haven't played particularly close attention. My archer goes ahead of my Oiler in terms of initiative, so setting up a pool then lighting it up is a fantasy.

Again, do bear in mind that it might have been changed in other patches but it certainly did damage to burning targets. Not a lot but occasionally my mage would be left with 3-5 AP and wouldn't have anything else to cast that did anything useful (the staff attack blows), so I used oil on burning targets for some more damage.

God damn. I never thought about using it in conjunction with wet...I was wondering why I got frozen with it that one time and chilled every time thereafter. That's awesome, thank you.

Spoiler: You're welcome

she's a bit lumbery with all that armor on.

With Crafting 2 and and anvil, you can remove the movement speed penalty from heavy armour. To clarify, only the chest piece but still - it usually has a big penalty. Just drag the armour onto the anvil and it's done. Haste also gives you MS boost and also AP boost (if you have the Dex to not have a penalty to it, you can pick up Fast Track from Scoundrel 1 for a self-buff).

The Speed attribute also increases your MS and your AP. If you are not getting GC, then Speed should probably be your secondary attribute. Just focus on main stat, Speed, Constitution (in this order). Or if you have multiple main stats (Int/Str), you'd probably need to ration your points a bit but it's not too bad. Do note that further on in the game you'd be able to sell (unspent) Talent points for skill/attribute points and, unless patched, that gives a big boost:
1 Talent = 10 Skill points = 2 Stat points

Is that what Zombie does? Heals you with poison?

Technically, it gives you 200% poison resistance but yeah. Do note that it also damages your character if you try to heal them in any another way.

Question regarding that...once I shot a zombie with the ricochet ability, and every other target hit was "resisting poison". There is no poison on my bow. Did shooting that first poison zombie poison the arrow that went on to hit the other targets? Usually I'd think there wasn't a chance, but with this game I can't be sure...

I'm not sure if projectiles get coated with stuff as they pass through objects. It would be quite cool if they did and I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case but I just don't know - I've not played with an archer. I do know that zombies "bleed" poison, though - so it might have been splashes of "blood" that hit the other targets.

 

[EternallyBored]

Snip

There's also the keeper of secrets that sells those two stat boosting books from time to time, for about 16k gold it gives one character a single stat point and 3 skill points, I stacked those books to create a warrior with 15+ strength speed and constitution, and a wizard with 5 in all spellcasting schools, including witchcraft, and a 5 in both willpower and body building.

 

[DoPo]

Snip

There's also the keeper of secrets that sells those two stat boosting books from time to time, for about 16k gold it gives one character a single stat point and 3 skill points, I stacked those books to create a warrior with 15+ strength speed and constitution, and a wizard with 5 in all spellcasting schools, including witchcraft, and a 5 in both willpower and body building.

I think that got fixed, too. She restocked at every levelup but I think Larian made her only carry the books once.